12/13 Russia Pays for Refusal to 'Cooperate'

GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGIC CONTEXT
digest intro:
US global domination requires permanent, perpetual wars, on world, regional and/or national scales, they all geostrategically interconnected, all under pretext of some noble 'casus belli', with old & new 'partners', carrot and/or sticks tactics depending on conditions - and increasing desperation as its ruling grip on the old world order is outdone, challenged, defeated and doomed.
Trying to understand the 'apocalyptic' chaos and destruction to decide what can be done, is futile by relying on media 'news', 'strategic information', literally covering each new relentless disinformation horror as a sudden out-of-nowhere crisis so the significance and interconnectedness of the 'grand chessboard' pieces are not visible as manipulated elements of the bipartisan US National Security Agenda [US NSS]

Seductively simple and safe information war for imperialist-zionist predators, their pundits and pimps portraying this political-economic system as the best possible. Or if you don't buy that, better believe it's all-powerful and 'if you aren't with us you're with the terrorists', psywar is disarming and dangerous to lull justice and peace seekers with the well-honed 'electoral opposition' scam that by now we should know all ends up on the same basic world-planet destroying course to save finance capital. Or taking the line of least resistance, succumbing to paralysis from the selectively pruned 'trees' bombardment that obscures or obliterates very knowable and available truth - with its clear and urgent directional action signals.

Given capitalist media's role as state propaganda mouthpiece, the digest has found the best way to 'know the enemy' is to get information directly its finance capitalist political-economic-military thinktanks, foundations and academic institutions 'expert' analyses, arguments, critiques and tactical survival plans against major capitalist rivals, Russia & China with their growing 'blocs', and against ingrate "terrorist" resistance to its genocidal 'humanitarian aid, democracy, diplomacy and development aid'.
What's much more difficult to discover is true resistance analysis and information...and getting more difficult as google continually 'improves its algorithm system in the service of its NSA and other information war partners.

The US has had a 'no rivals or equivalent powers' policy since 1992, with the elimination of the Soviet Union, its major rival for global supremacy [under two different class rule systems: originally a socialist state whose 1917 revolution inspired 'threatening' anti-imperialist and socialist struggles, then it threatened the sole 'superpower' as another imperialist stste in 'socialist' drag] in order to expand and secure its unrivalled world rule, Whatever tactical shifts are necessary, soft 'public diplomacy' plus hard power, at every level, politicians and policies are honed for US NSS geostrategic agenda.

This digest issue examines how the current Russia imbroglio and major players fit into the global agenda picture. Following issues will include excerpts from Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Hegemonic Quicksand", a detailed analysis and prescription for maintaining US dominance of the world order under new conditions requiring useful 'partners", and other analyses,
imperialist and anti-imperialist, that illuminate the situation in context from the two opposing sides of this critical historical conjuncture.

US-NATO Missile Shield directed against Russia spawning New Arms Race: Russian military chief
Georgia's NATO Entry Can Lead To War: Russian Foreign Minister
12/8/11 Rick Rozoff
“We see at what rate the missile defense is being introduced in Europe and we see that the directions are different – not against the Southern threat, as it had been declared. It puts us on alert. Naturally, we must take measures now and not in 2018 in order not to find ourselves in a losing situation,” General Makarov said.

Russia’s stance came as the U.S. State Department singled Russia out for blocking a UN response.
Russia Rejects Sanctions on Syria
12/14/11 http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=37916&cid=22&fromval=...
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov renewed his country’s rejection of using the language of ultimatums in dealing with Syria...At a press conference with his Algerian counterpart, Murad Medelci, in Moscow, Lavrov pointed out the armed groups in Homs province are bombarding military units, government buildings and hospitals in the city to create a human catastrophe and make a pretext for foreign interference. He stressed his country’s rejection of any sanctions against Syria, clarifying that sanctions would give opposite results, according to the SANA news agency. Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, during a UN Security Council session dedicated to discussing the situation in Syria, warned against the dangerous stances of Western countries which seek to “change the regime” in Syria and hinder dialogue between Syria and the AL. Russia’s stance came as the U.S. State Department singled Russia out for blocking a United Nations response.

Smoking emails: US State Dept and Golos NGO Election Monitor
Election-meddling fiasco hits U.S.-Russia relations
12/5/11 rt.com/politics/russia-us-elections-clinton-putin-2012-usaid-427/http://tehrantimes.com/world/93364-1000s-hold-demo-in-russia-amid-electi...
The Russian news website Life News on Friday published email correspondence between the U.S. State Department and the election watchdog NGO Golos that detail payments by 'foreign organizations' for work done to discredit the results of Russia’s parliamentary vote...threatening to bring the reset to a grinding halt, Russia reported Saturday. Golos, that has monitored elections in Russia for 10 years, was fined 30,000 rubles ($1,000) last week for publishing “election-related opinion polls and research” after a deadline for publishing such material had passed (five days or less before an election).
Life News reported it has possession of 60 megabytes of Golos' private online correspondence sent and received by Golos Executive Chief Lilya Shibanova and her deputy Grigory Melkonyants. Judging by the published documents, the Russian election watchdog, which claims to be an independent entity, was funded by the U.S. State Department to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives.
One letter by Yulia Kostkina, a financial analyst for the United States Agency for International Development (U.S.AID), to Golos Deputy Chief Grigory Melkonyants, reads like a shopping list of demands. “The list of the lacking documents we are expecting from you: Policy and procedures of applying currency rates to Golos accountance and finance reporting; Procurement activities; Procedures of property management considering the procedures, existing in U.S. AID,” Kostkina writes.
Here is a letter by activist Andrey Suvorov to Melkonyants: “Hello, I just wanted to discuss the conditions of our work once again. Like we have defined it, it is piece-rated.
What will be the sum for one full appeal based on a violation report? What will be the sum for the detected incorrect report about a violation? Waiting for your answer.If necessary, I will come up with my suggestions. Best regards, Andrey.”...
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have made no secret of their funding of Russian NGOs involved in the monitoring of elections.“We have, I know, spent more than $9 million to support free and transparent processes for Russia’s upcoming elections,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said. “Our interest is to support NGOs that support the process, not necessarily support… any given political party.”
Even before Russian election monitors had released their official review of the parliamentary vote, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was already out of the gate, criticizing the election process as “unfair.” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had harsh words for Clinton, saying she had “set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal … and [they] started active work.”Speaking at a meeting of the Popular Front Federal Coordinating Council this week, Putin said that “representatives of some foreign states” were paying politically-active NGOs in Russia to “influence the course of the election campaign in our country.”“We need to safeguard ourselves from this interference in our internal affairs and defend our sovereignty,” the Prime Minister said. “It is necessary to think about improving the law and toughening responsibility for those who take orders from foreign states to influence internal political processes.” Putin, stressing that Russia has nothing against the presence of foreign observers at elections, said Russia draws the line at interference in its internal affairs from abroad.

Prokhorov to Challenge Putin in Presidential Election
12/12/11 http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Russias-Prokhorov-to-Challeng...
Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and U.S. New Jersey Nets basketball team owner, announced he run for president against Russian PM Vladimir Putin in March 2012
Prokhorov said he supported early release from prison ofMikhail Khodorkovsky, a former energy tycoon and multi-billionaire serving an eight-year term for fraud.Forbes financial magazine estimated Prokhorov's fortune at $18 billion, making him Russia's third-richest man. His business empire reportedly has interests in heavy industry, rare metals, energy, finance, media and nanotechnologies.http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/12/12/132831/russian-oligarch-prokhorov-to.html

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has strong American support against Putin
By Milla Johanevich http://digitaljournal.com/blog/14324#
Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia’s third richest man, has announced he will run against Vladimir Putin in next year’s Russian presidency.This is certainly a good sign he is a brilliant businessman and a leader.Mikhail Dmitrievitch is a Russian billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the American basketball team, the New Jersey Nets After graduating from the Moscow Finance Institute he made his name in the financial sector and went on to become one of Russia's leading industrialists in the precious metals sector. While he was running Norilsk Nickel, the company became the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium. He is currently chairman of Polyus Gold Russia's largest gold producer, and President of ONEXIM.
The US will to support Mikhail Prokhorov to become president of Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Russia for a parliamentary election she called rigged
The US power-full billionaire George Soros support Mikhail Prokhorov bid to become Russian President. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, joined forces with billionaire George Soros and Albanian billionaire Sahit Muja in New York to invest in gold and mining industry....that has made billions of dollars for Russian billionaire .

Invest In Africa: Mikhail Prokhorov's Renaissance Group

9/15/11 africanmoney.blogspot.com/2011/09/mikhail-prokhorovs-renaissance-group.html
Russia’s Renaissance Group – jointly owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and New Zealand’s Stephen Jennings – is planning elaborate investment plans in Africa, which would fortify the company’s foothold across the continent.. a 6,400-acre city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in addition to the $5 billion Tatu City it is currently building in Kenya.
The plans signify a major strategic boost in Africa and is further evidence of an increasing number of Russian firms that are shifting their focus more on the country’s economic growth and emerging urban middle class rather than its extractive industries. The group also revealed plans for a new urban center just outside of Lubumbashi, the country’s second-largest city, as well as considering similar projects in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Rwanda.

'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival'http://www.princeton.edu/~ppn/docfiles/pentagon_1992.html NYT March 8, 1992
This Defense Planning guidance addresses the fundamentally new situation created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi aggression -- the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two victories, there has been a less visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic "zone of peace." [...]

1997 THE GRAND CHESSBOARD: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives
Zbigniew Brzezinski

'PUBLIC DIPLOMACY' RATIONALIZING U.S. EFFORT TO DEFEAT RUSSIA'S RESISTANCE TO US NATO'S EURASIA ENCROACHMENT. OLD TRICK IS A CLUE: CONFOUNDING TZARIST & REVOLUTIONARY SOVIET ERAS.
The S.U. was U.S. enemy #1 as a revolutionary socialist nation whose early working class-led socialism was a beacon that inspired oppressed nations & peoples worldwide. When capitalism, with US aid, was restored, Russia soon became US enemy #1 again, this time as a too-successful capitalist rival
The Stillborn Project of a Eurasian Union: Why Russia-led Post-Soviet Integration Has Little Prospects
12/9/11 by Andreas Umland, Foreign Policy Journal, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/12/09/the-stillborn-project-of-...
At first glance, the idea of a re-integration of the post-Soviet republics may seem sensible. The economies, societies, and populations of the successor republics of the USSR are linked to each other by a multitude of ties. On closer inspection, the creation of a new supranational formation spanning much of the territory of the former Tsarist and Soviet empires is hampered by structural and historical constraints. The sum of these impediments make Putin’s project of a Eurasian Union look ill-conceived. Its practical implementation would create more problems than it will solve....
All too often, Moscow has been guilty of various forms of repression of nations under its rule, and engaged in russification drives, during both, the Tsarist and Soviet periods.
It also does not help that Russia’s past and future leader, Vladimir Putin, is a representative of those organs previously responsible for the execution of, among other crimes, anti-national policies. The term with which Putin chose to label his new project – “Eurasian” – too is problematic (a critique also applying to its use in Western post-Sovietology). Obviously, Putin’s “Eurasia” does not refer to the entire Euro-Asiatic landmass. Instead, the term implies some other concept – a question left unanswered in his programmatic Izvestia article (as well as in some Western usage of the label). Perhaps, it refers to the “Eurasianism” developed by the classical Russian Eurasianists of the 1920s. While the evraziitsy included respected academics, and had considerable sympathy for the Turkic people of the Russian empire, they were also imperial nationalists. For instance, the Eurasianists wished to extend the Orthodox faith all over “Eurasia.” Moreover, Eurasianism was explicitly ideocratic, openly anti-democratic, and rabidly anti-Western – ideas which are hardly constructive prescriptions for the development of the post-Soviet nations today. The bizarre biologistic or occultistic world views of such prominent later self-ascribed “Eurasian” as Lev Gumilev or Alexander Dugin provide even less suitable ideational foundations for a Eurasian Union.
Germany too, of course, had an image problem (to put it mildly) after World War II. The Germans were then far less “popular” among the European nations, than the Russians are today in the post-Soviet area. Notwithstanding, West Germany was included into both, the European integration process and Atlantic alliance – initiatives, to some degree, especially designed to tame and frame the German monster. West Germany’s membership in various Western organizations helped to gradually diminish the other European nations’ fear of a German resurgence.
In contrast, Russia’s membership in the envisaged Eurasian Union will contribute little to alleviate the widespread skepticism regarding her eventual aims, among the cultural and political elites of the other post-Soviet successor states. For that to achieve, Russia would have to engage in, among other transformations, a comprehensive Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) regarding both, Tsarist and Soviet nationality policies. This is something that the currently dominant Russian intellectual and political elites are not yet ready for. Rather, many Russians would regard the idea of Russian repentance for the Tsars’ or Soviet leaders’ regressions towards the non-Russian peoples, cultures and traditions as ridiculous. Some are deeply offended by non-Russian critique of Russian imperial history.

Behind Libya and U.S. North African campaign , as well as its 'human rights', ''crisis relief' and development aid' in Southern Africa
US needs Russia as a 'partner' not rival to conquer African Continent -- Soros & co. to the rescue

US reckless proxy war in Somalia
12/30/06 by Salim Lone, http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/us-proxy-war-in-somalia-reckless...
Salim Lone, a spokesman in 2003 for the Iraq UN mission in Iraq, is a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya.
Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has succeeded in opening another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full US backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which until three days ago, controlled almost the entire south of the country. As with Iraq in 2003, the US casts this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, just miles across from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. US General John P. Abizaid, current Iraq war military chief, was in Ethiopia this month...Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements.

12/14/06 U.S. Ethiopia-Eritrea Proxy War in Somalia Risks Broader Conflict in Horn of Africa Regionalwww.cfr.org/terrorism/ethiopia-eritrea-proxy-war-somalia-risks-broader-r...
“Given the stakes and role the region plays with regard to the Arabian Peninsula and counterterrorism, the importance of democratization promotion globally, and growing attention to the region on Capitol Hill and within diaspora communities, disengagement is not an option.” ...
“Well-funded programs on democratization and rule of law should be offered to support positive political openings. Washington should reach out to the wide spectrum of opposition groups both within Ethiopia and in the diaspora and encourage them to pursue strategies of peaceful electoral competition, rather than armed struggle.”

Soros Joins Top Names in African Deal
12/13/09 http://africanmoney.blogspot.com/2009/12/soros-joins-top-names-in-africa...
What unites once the world’s most powerful foreign secretary, once the world’s most powerful hedge fund manager and a scion of perhaps once the world’s most powerful banking dynasty? Helios Investment Partners, an independent firm set up five years ago by two former executives from TPG Capital, a large and very influential buyout group, has pulled off the feat of bringing George Soros, Madeleine Albright and Jacob Rothschild into the same deal to open up mobile phones to the other half of the African population without telecommunication access as co-investors in Helios Towers Africa to buy mobile phone masts in the continent outside of Nigeria and boost telecoms penetration rates beyond 45%. Temitope Lawani, a co-founder of Helios, said the firm had previously invested with Soros Strategic Partners, the private equity operation of the hedge fund manager who effectively forced the devaluation of sterling more than a decade earlier, in Africa. Soros has been a successful backer of US mobile phone towers, having bought Sprint’s 3,000 masts a few years before, and knows the sector well....

Western investors now target Africa’s unlisted firms
Billionaire George Soros was among the speakers at the Sierra Leone Trade and Investment Forum in London attended by a high-level Sierra Leonian delegation led by Mr Koroma... the Prince of Wales, Mr Tony Blair, representatives of the UK and US governments, and hundreds of potential international investors demonstrated the growing interest in the region. The time is right to invest in Africa,” former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the London summit. Mr Blair is an unpaid adviser to Mr Kagame and Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma, whose country was named the easiest place to do business in West Africa...Rwanda President Paul Kagame, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and African Development Bank (AfDB) chief private equity officer Martin Poulsen were on the roster of speakers at the one-day executive summit on private equity placements in the continent. President Kagame’s presence may have been interpreted to mean that while investors are willing to pump in more money, they also need reassurance their investments will be safe in a continent where returns are high, but risks even higher. Insiders at the discussions say new growth opportunities topped the agenda with leading industry group Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (Empea) reporting that fundraising activity in sub-Saharan Africa has almost tripled from $800 million in 2005 to $2.2 billion in 2008.
Analysts interviewed by Africa Insight spoke of a gradual shift in thinking, with the private sector being seen as providing the needed growth momentum for a continent that has taken a beating following the financial crisis that western markets are emerging from.Infrastructure and services have been particularly attractive to speculators, and likely to see even more interest with a new World Bank report released last week pointing to potential opportunities on the continent, prescribing annual investment of $93 billion —15% of the region’s GDP—to meet the continent’s needs.

SOMALIA : “A famine caused by men, not by global warming”
11/28/2011, by T.J. Coles, http://www.albared.org/node/13http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_64101.shtml
Africa specialist, Alex de Waal, wrote “The humanitarian garb of Operation Restore Hope launched in December 1992..having “more to do with testing the newly emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ than saving Somalis.” ...the CIA estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Somalis killed by US forces: many of the victims women and children. Commanding General Anthony Zinni said, “I’m not counting bodies ... I’m not interested.”
In 2006, Britain and America began a proxy war in Somalia by training Ethiopian warlords to invade the country in order to destroy the government, the Islamic Courts Union—and with it any chance of socioeconomic recovery. Journalist Aidan Hartley reported that under the leadership of the Western-backed Abdullahi Yusuf, who governed Mogadishu from 2006 to 2008 “up to a million civilians had fled the bombardments in Mogadishu: they now live in tents made of plastic and twigs ... This is a famine caused by men, not global warming.”
Until the intensification of the 2011 famine, the Western media were more interested in piracy than in the slow starvation of millions of people.
The purpose of the 1992 invasion was to wreck The Islamic Courts Union government's stabilising to secure Somalia's resources ... specifically by discouraging Chinese and Russian exploration deals. The country has significant reserves about which few people are aware... Since early 2008, “China and Russia have attempted to make deals with the Somali government for exploration purposes.”...When the famine became a useful pretext to funnel aid to the Somaliland Police Force, media interest picked up...
If you think piracy is more newsworthy than the starvation of a nation... what are its causes? A Chatham House study published in 2008 by the UK’s leading Somalia specialist, Roger Middleton, found “The only period during which piracy virtually vanished around Somalia was during the six months rule of the Islamic Courts Union in the second half of 2006. This indicates that a functioning government in Somalia is capable of controlling piracy.”
A free media would keep reminding us of what happened to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). In 2006, Western-sponsored Ethiopia warlords invaded Somalia to destroy the ICU. The invasion by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was aided by familiar media lies that suppressed TFG’s atrocities and invented stories about the ICU. “Mogadishu became relatively peaceful, and the Islamic Courts [sic] received support from the population in areas it controlled,” a US Congress report noted. “[T]he group had constituencies from multiple sub-clans and had broad support among Somali women,” waylaying media allegations of misogyny...
Very little of this has been reported in the West. Instead, concern has been focused on Somali pirates, and how US and NATO are using drones and sonic weapons to stop them—not to stop the raping, looting, and general atrocities being committed by the other pirates: the TFG and the European Union; nor to stop the slow starvation of nearly four million Somalis. This typical imperial attitude brings to mind Rabindranath Tagore’s maxim, that “Power takes as ingratitude the writhings of its victims.”

Investigating the Pentagon’s African Holocaust
Spanish High Court Hears Evidence From Journalist Keith Harmon Snow
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / December 14th, 2011 http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/12/investigating-the-pentagons-african-ho...
"evidence proves the US, Britain and Israel were responsible for training, financing and covert military and logistic support for Kagame and Museveni proxy forces"
Keith Harmon Snow has been researching the tragedy known to the world as the “Rwandan genocide” since 1994, and has, with many other experts, evidence to prove that the United States, Britain and Israel were responsible for the training, financing and covert military and logistic support of Kagame and Museveni proxy forces.
November 29th. Snow, investigative journalist and genocide expert, testified before Spain’s Highest Court (Audencia Nacional) to support indictments against 40 Rwandan officials for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during the western-backed invasions of Rwanda and Congo/Zaire by Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF)....
In spite of threats and intimidation from agents linked to Western governments and from the UN, Spanish High Court authorities are continuing to hear evidence against the U.S. proxy forces in Ugandan and Rwandan in Africa....The ongoing Rwandan occupation and plunder of eastern Congo has resulted in the deaths of some ten million people, making this the worst war since the Second World War. The Central African holocaust has been largely ignored by global mass media corporations calling for “humanitarian intervention” in Syria, much as they did to justify invading Libya, by the same countries responsible for supporting mass carnage in Africa....
Contrary to its stated “peacekeeping” mission, the United Nations Observers Mission for the Congo (MONUC) and its dependent, Monusco, has been deployed in the Congo since 2000... provided cover for the Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundi forces, USAID, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), populated with satellite US military bases.and scores of Western mining corporations plundering the Eastern Congo....
According to Snow: U.S.-based groups fronted by the intelligence and defense establishment, pretending to be ‘grass roots NGOs’ — such as the ENOUGH project, Raise Hope for Congo, Resolve, STAND and Save Darfur — co-opted the grass roots movement, whitewash the issues and control the media, academic and public spaces...
Uncovering the truth about the role of Western imperialism in the violence that has beset Central Africa since the fall of the USSR to the present day, is of vital importance, as the racist myth of an 'African genocide' America “failed to prevent” constitutes the basis for the Orwellian “responsibility to protect” [R2P] doctrine.
"Politics of Genocide" film: Please make a donation, according to your means, through our evolving web site .Thank you, Keith Harmon Snow

Soros to End Four-Decade Hedge-Fund Career
By Katherine Burton - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/soros-to-end-four-decades-as-he...
George Soros, the billionaire, best known for breaking the Bank of England, is returning money... less than $1 billion... to outside investors in his $25.5 billion firm, ending a hedge-fund career....His firm will focus on managing assets solely for Soros and his family ...The move completes Soros’s transformation from a speculator, who made $1 billion in 1992 betting the Bank of England would be forced to devalue the pound, to philanthropist statesman...and made about $750 million betting on a decline in the Thai baht in 1997...forcing Thailand to cut public spending in exchange for a $17.2 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund....
In 1997, his philanthropic tendencies drove him to buy Russian assets. He took a $1 billion stake in RAO Svyazinvest, Russia’s state-owned telecommunications company, and went on to buy Russian stocks and bonds.... “He felt if he was a beacon of investment in Russia, others would follow and the capital inflows would transform the society and integrate them into the G7,” said Robert Johnson, a former Soros managing director...Soros opened his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in 1979, when his fund reached about $100 million and his personal wealth had climbed to about $25 million. His focus was on promoting democracy and a market economy in Eastern Europe. Soros now funds a network of foundations that operate in over 70 countries around the globe, everywhere from the U.S. to Montenegro to South Africa and Haiti....

Pro-Democracy Protests Put Putin, Russia at Turning Point
12/9/11 http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Moscow-Braces-for-Anti-Putin-...
Is the Arab Spring moving North to become the Russian Winter? With democracy demonstrations to take place across Russia on Saturday, the world’s largest nation may be at a crossroads. From his prison cell, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Russian tycoon, captured the core of Russia’s political impasse when he predicted a few weeks ago that the key question would not be who will win Russia’s elections, but how much will the fraud undermine the legitimacy of Vladimir Putin’s government? Saturday, barely one week after Russia’s parliamentary elections, we may see the answer...Where is all this headed? Boris Makarenko, chairman of the Center for Political Technologies, an independent think tank in Moscow, doesn't believe the Russian street will dethrone the Czar. “I don’t think it is going towards an Orange Revolution like in Ukraine, Georgia or Yugoslavia”.

CONTEXT
Russia and Rotating the U.S. Focus
4/1//08 http://www.stratfor.com
The Russian Resurgence; U.S. Weakness and Russia’s Window of Opportunity
(related articles for Stratfor's Full Geopolitical Intelligence members only)
By George Friedman
For the past year, Stratfor has been focusing on what we see as the critical global geopolitical picture. As the U.S.-jihadist war has developed, it has absorbed American military resources dramatically. It is overstated to say that the United States lacks the capacity to intervene anywhere else in the world, but it is not overstated to say that the United States cannot make a major, sustained intervention without abandoning Iraq. Thus, the only global power has placed almost all of its military chips in the Islamic world.
Russia has taken advantage of the imbalance in the U.S. politico-military posture to attempt to re-establish its sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union. To this end, Russia has taken advantage of its enhanced financial position — due to soaring commodity prices, particularly in the energy sector — as well as a lack of American options in the region.
The Russians do not have any interest in re-establishing the Soviet Union, nor even in controlling the internal affairs of most of the former Soviet republics. Moscow does want to do two things, however. First, it wants to coordinate commodity policies across the board to enhance Russian leverage. Second, and far more important, it wants to limit U.S. and European influence in these countries. Above all, Russia does not want NATO to expand further — and undoubtedly would like to see a NATO rollback, particularly in the Baltic states.
From a strategic point of view, the United States emerged from the Cold War with a major opportunity. Since it is not in the United States’ interests to have any great power emerge in Eurasia, making certain that Russia did not re-emerge as a Eurasian hegemon clearly was a strategic goal of the United States. The Soviet disintegration did not in any way guarantee that it would not re-emerge in another form.
The United States pursued this goal in two ways. The first was by seeking to influence the nature of the Russian regime, trying to make it democratic and capitalist under the theory that democratic and capitalist nations did not engage in conflict with democratic and capitalist countries...what emerged was systemic chaos and decomposition. The Russians ultimately achieved this on their own, though the US and Europe certainly contributed.
The second way Washington pursued this goal was by trying to repeat the containment of the Soviet Union with a new containment of Russia. Under this strategy, the US executed a series of moves toward the end of expanding U.S. influence in countries surrounding Russia... incorporating them into NATO, or putting them on the path to NATO membership.
NATO Expansion and Color Revolutions
The Baltic states were included, along with the former Soviet empire in Central Europe. But the critical piece in all of this was Ukraine. If Ukraine were included in NATO or fell under Western influence, Russia’s southern flank would become indefensible. NATO would be a hundred miles from Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad. NATO would also be less than a hundred miles from St. Petersburg. In short, Russia would become a strategic cripple.
The U.S. encouraged pro-American, democratic movements in the former Soviet Republics — the so-called “color revolutions.” The Orange Revolution in Ukraine was the breaking point in US -- Russian relations. The US openly supported pro-Western democrats in Ukraine. The Russians (correctly) saw this as a direct and deliberate US challenge to Russian national security...
Having their own means of influence in Ukraine, the Russians intervened politically to put a brake on the evolution. The result was a stalemate that Russia appeared destined to win by dint of U.S. preoccupation with the Islamic world, Russian proximity, and the fact that Russia had an overwhelming interest in Ukraine while the Americans had only a distant interest.
U.S. interest might have been greater than the Russians thought. The Americans have watched the re-emergence of Russia as a major regional power. It is no global superpower, but it certainly has regained its position as a regional power, reaching outside of its own region in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Iranians and Germans must both take Russia into account as they make their calculations. The Russian trajectory is thus clear. They may never be a global power again, but they are going to be a power that matters.
The Closing Window
It is far easier for the United States to prevent the emergence of a hegemon than to control one that has already emerged. Logically, the United States wants to block the Russian re-emergence, but Washington is running out of time. Indeed, one might say that the Americans are already out of time. Certainly, the US must act now or else accept Russia as a great power and treat it as such.
This is why U.S. President George W. Bush has gone to Ukraine... in the context of an upcoming NATO summit, where the US called for beginning the process that will include Ukraine — as well as Georgia and other Balkan powers — in NATO. Having gone relatively quiet on the issue of NATO expansion since the Orange Revolution, the US now has become extremely aggressive...traveling to Ukraine to tout NATO membership, is directly challenging the Russians on what they regard as their home turf.
Clearly, the U.S. window of opportunity is closing: Russian economic, political and military influence in Ukraine is substantial and growing, while the U.S. ability to manipulate events in Ukraine is weak. But Bush is taking a risky step. First, Bush doesn’t have full NATO support, which he needs since NATO requires unanimity in these issues. Several important NATO countries —particularly Germany — have opposed this expansion on technical merits that are hard to argue with... that not only is Ukraine not militarily ready to start meaningful membership talks, but that the majority of its population opposes membership in the first place...the US clearly feels it can deal with German objections if it creates the proper political atmosphere in Ukraine... demonstrate the Russians are impotent, their power is illusory, create consensus in NATO. Russia’s relatively weak response over Kosovo was taken by Washington and many in Europe (particularly Central Europe) as a sign of Russian weakness. Bush needs to push the advantage now, since he won’t have a chance later. So the visit has been shaped as a direct challenge to Russia. Should Moscow fail to take up the challenge, the dynamics of the former Soviet Union will be changed. The Russians are moving now, and the US can either confront them now or concede the game until the United States is in a military position to resume Russian containment. Bush doesn’t have any years left in office to wait. The global system is making a major shift now... off balance and bogged down in the Islamic world, the only global power is trying to extricate itself while rebalancing its foreign policies and confronting a longer-term Russian threat to its interests. The Russians have three possible countermoves [...]

US NSS: expands the merger soft & hard power: State Dept. 'diplomacy' and 'all civilian agencies' with Pentagon 'defense'
THE QUADRENNIAL DIPLOMACY AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW
The QDDR provides a blueprint for elevating American "civilian power" to better advance our national interests and to be a better partner to the U.S. military...directing and coordinating the resources of all America's civilian agencieswww.state.gov/s/dmr/qddr/

“Foreign Affairs Policy Board”http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/05/clinton_starts_foreig...
Dec. 19, Secretary of State Clinton will host the first meeting of a panel of experts that will advise Clinton and her successor on the top priorities facing the State Department. Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state, chairs the new "Foreign Affairs Policy Board," modeled after the Pentagon Defense Policy Board's QDR

8/8/08 Georgian troops fire rockets at separatist South Ossetian troops
Untitled Stratfor document
Internal Stratfor documents are produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. These documents are not forecasts, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.
Given the speed with which the Russians reacted to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia, Moscow was clearly ready to intervene. We suspect the Georgians were set up for this in some way, but at this point the buildup to the conflict no longer matters. What matters is the message that Russia is sending to the West. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev summed this message up best: “Historically Russia has been, and will continue to be, a guarantor of security for peoples of the Caucasus.”
Strategically, we said Russia would respond to Kosovo’s independence, and they have. Russia is now declaring the Caucasus to be part of its sphere of influence. We have spoken for months of how Russia would find a window of opportunity to redefine the region. This is happening now.... This is the first major Russian intervention since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yes, Russia has been involved elsewhere. Yes, Russia has fought. But this is on a new order of confidence and indifference to general opinion. We will look at this as a defining moment. The most important reaction will not be in the US or Western Europe. It is the reaction in the former Soviet states that matters most right now, the real audience for this. Watch the reaction of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Balts. How will Russia’s moves affect them psychologically?
The Russians hold a trump card with the Americans: Iran. They can flood Iran with weapons at will. The main U.S. counter is in Ukraine and Central Asia, but is not nearly as painful.
Tactically, there is only one issue: Will the Russians attack Georgia on the ground? If they are going to, the Russians likely made that decision days ago....

Cheney issues warning to Russia
8/11/08 http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/08/11/Cheney_issues_warning_to_Russia/U...
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Russia faces serious consequences with the United States and its allies if it continues attacks against Georgia. A Cheney spokeswoman said the vice president told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia's actions "must not go unanswered," CNN reported Monday.

Georgia's "Rose Revolution"
When NGOs Attack: Implications of the Coup in Georgia
7/28/11 By Jacob Levich, www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/rose.htm
Georgia's "Rose Revolution" was planned and centrally coordinated by the US government. The 24 November 2003 Wall Street Journal credited the fall of Eduard Shevardnadze's regime to the operations of "a raft of non-governmental organizations . . . supported by American and other Western foundations." According to the WSJ, the NGOs had "spawned a class of young, English-speaking intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms" who laid the groundwork for a bloodless coup. Shevardnadze had switched sides, and was backed by the Russians. Richard Miles, US ambassador to Georgia, was chief of mission (effectively ambassador) to Yugoslavia from 1996 to 1999, and laid groundwork to get rid of Milosevic in 2000. Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation funded critically important groups like Georgia's Liberty Institute, its leading 'human rights' organization, NGO that received U.S. funds since 1996. Ukraine's Orange Revolution followed in 2004; and Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution took place in March 2005.

U.S. FUNDS PROXY'S GRANTS
5/9/11 Israel to invest initial $1 billion in Iron Dome missile defense system
http://www.indiandefence.com/forums/f15/israel-invest-$1-billion-iron-dome-missile-defense-system-6483/
The director general said that Iron Dome is considered one of the central systems as the new IDF multi-year plan takes shape. "We are no longer approaching this in terms of initial operational capabilities but are defining the final target for absorbing the systems, in terms of schedule and funds. We are talking about [having] 10-15 Iron Dome batteries. We will invest nearly $1 billion on this. This is the goal, in addition to the $205 million that the U.S. government has authorized," Shani said... five other countries are interested.
The U.S. grant is expected to cover four extra batteries, in addition to the two already delivered to the IDF. The final number of batteries will depend on the chosen "mix" between batteries and interception missiles, which are costly. In addition to Iron Dome there are plans to invest another $1 billion in the continued development of Magic Wand, a medium-level missile interception system (also developed by Rafael ).

Israel Invested $1 Billion in Georgiahttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/151211
The Israeli-Georgia connection is estimated to be worth $1 billion, according to a former Georgian ambassador to Israel. The Jewish state and private investors have provided military assistance and advisors to Georgia, where pipelines pump oil destined for Israel. A new pipeline is being built to bypass Russian territory.

8/9/08 Georgian minister: Thanks to Israeli training, we're fending off Russiahttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010187.html
Jewish Georgian Minister Temur Yakobshvili on Sunday praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might which trained Georgian soldiers, in an interview with Army Radio. 'The whole world is starting to understand that what is happening here will determine the future of this region, the future price of crude oil, the future of central Asia, and the future of NATO...every bomb that falls over our heads is an attack on democracy, on the European Union and on America.'

7/14/11 NATO rattles weapons too close to Russian borders
NATO troops are training for combat operations in mountainous terrain on Russian borders at the Sachkhere military base in Imereti, Western Georgia.In 2005 this facility appeared when Saakashvili launched comprehensive preparations for combat actions in South Ossetia. http://english.pravda.ru/world/ussr/14-07-2011/118486-nato_russia_georgi...

NATO conceals preparations for military action against Syria ...
11/24/11 The U.S.decided to disengage itself from certain ... NATO conceals preparations to military action against Syria. ... The expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance continued, and NATO neared Russian borders. ...english.pravda.ru english.pravda.ru/world/asia/24-11-2011/119733-nato_syria-0/

SOROS Falls from Grace in Central Asia
nCa Commentary Central Asia Speaks:http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11...
After Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan has also voiced concerns about the activities of SOROS Foundation. This completes the quorum. In rapid sequence, Uzbekistan kicked out SOROS, Kazakhstan issued a back-taxes notice that is likely to lead to closure of SOROS offices, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgzstan whipped SOROS for interfering in the society and President Imomali Rakhmanov of Tajikistan told his cabinet of ministers he considered SOROS a destructive presence. Why has the entire Central Asian region united against SOROS' supposedly philanthropic organizations engaged in grand and noble projects of greatest possible value to the primitive and barbarian societies of Central Asia? […]

MEET A BIG U.S. MAN IN MOSCOW: 'CHARISMATIC' NATIONAL SOCIALIST ALEX NAVALNY
Rousing Russia With a Phrasehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/world/europe/the-saturday-profile-blog...
MOSCOW — The man most responsible for the extraordinary burst of antigovernment activism here over the past week will not speak at a rally planned for Saturday, or even attend it, because he is in prison. Cut off from the Internet, Russia’s best-known blogger will have to wait until the next morning, when his lawyer will take him a stack of printouts telling him what happened — whether the protest fizzled, exploded into violence or made history. At a final coordinating meeting for the protest on Friday evening, where a roomful of veteran organizers were shouting to make themselves heard, a young environmental activist turned toward the crowd, suddenly grave. “I’d like to thank Aleksei Navalny,” she said. “Thanks to him, specifically because of the efforts of this concrete person, tomorrow thousands of people will come out to the square. It was he who united us with the idea: all against ‘the Party of Swindlers and Thieves,’...A week ago, Mr. Navalny, 35, was famous mainly within the narrow context of Russia’s blogosphere...but calling out to “nationalists, liberals, leftists, greens, vegetarians", he channeled accumulated anger with reported violations into street politics.
If Saturday’s protest is as large as its organizers expect — the city has granted a permit for 30,000 — Mr. Navalny will be credited for mobilizing a generation of young Russians through social media, a leap much like the one that spawned Occupy Wall Street and youth uprisings across Europe this year. The full measure of Mr. Navalny’s charisma became clear after protests on Monday night; an estimated 5,000 people making it the largest anti-Kremlin demonstration in recent memory and Mr. Navalny was arrested on charges of resisting the police and sentenced to 15 days in prison...“He is the only man who can take all the common hipsters and make them go onto the street,” said Anton Nikolayev, 35, who spent much of Tuesday outside courtrooms hoping to see Mr. Navalny. “He is a figure who could beat Putin if he was allowed.” Mr. Putin's approval ratings are above 60 percent, according to the independent Levada Center...whose survey showed were not willing to consider any figure from the anti-Putin opposition as a presidential candidate. Only 1 percent named Mr. Navalny, whose exposure is through Twitter and his blogs...But the aftermath of last Sunday’s parliamentary elections has shaken political assumptions, largely because the authorities seem unable to regain control of the public discourse. For a decade, Russia’s political agenda has been determined inside the Kremlin, where strategists selected and promulgated themes for public discussion, said Konstantin Remchukov, editor of the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

MR. NAVALNY has Nordic good looks, a caustic sense of humor and no political organization. Liberals have deep reservations about him, because he espouses Russian nationalist views. He has appeared as a speaker alongside neo-Nazis and skinheads, and once starred in a video that compares dark-skinned Caucasus militants to cockroaches. While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he says that in the case of humans, “I recommend a pistol.” ...
Thursday Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a statement about his [Navalny's] case. The consulting firm Medialogia documented a sudden leap in the number of mentions of Mr. Navalny in the Russian news media, from several hundred a day to around 3,000. Friday, people started circulating a Web site promoting him as a candidate in the March presidential election. Mr. Navalny, even skeptics admit, managed to knit together a crowd that had not previously existed....

'HUMAN RIGHTS' AS STATE TERRORIST SOFT POWER WMD
Sen­a­tor Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) submitted a new version of the Sergei Magnitsky legislation which would impose sanctions against Russian offi­cials who perpetrate human rights abuses.
The new bill enti­tled: “The Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­ity Act of 2011” follows from the “Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky Act of 2010”
Sen­a­tor Cardin said: “We see before us a tale of two Russias, the double headed eagle if you will. To whom does the future of Russia belong? Does it belong to the Yevgenia Chirikovas, Alexey Naval­nys, Oleg Orlovs and count­less other courageous, hard work­ing, patriotic Russians who expose corrup­tion and fight for human rights, or those who inhabit the shadows abusing and stealing from their fel­low citizens?” The Sergei Magnitsky bill will impose finan­cial sanc­tions and asset freezes against targeted individuals. It calls for the Secretary of the Treasury to:“freeze and prohibit all transactions in all property and interests in property of a person in the United States, that come within the United States, or come within the possession or control of a United States person”. http://lawandorderinrussia.org/2011/us-senator-cardin-submits-unpreceden...

No More U.S./Soros NGOs in Russia
NGOs, especially...political pressure groups like Human Rights Watch and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation, might be forced to close. In a meeting with human rights activists on 20 July, President Putin said he would not tolerate foreign money being used to fund the political activities of NGOs. Russian Government officials have repeatedly accused Western countries of helping bankroll Ukraine's Orange Revolution last year and Georgia's
Rose Revolution in 2003 through NGOs... Moscow Times, 9 November 2005

"It is not about opposition, it is about promotion of US interests in Russia"
8/6/06 Another Russia’ holds Congress
Intelligence Digest, John Laughland, August 2006, The Journal of the European Foundationwww.europeanfoundation.org/docs/August%202006.pdf
The former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, inaugurated a conference of leading Russian oppositionists at a Moscow hotel. The meeting was disrupted by protests by youth groups who support President Putin. They put on the costumes of American Indians (‘native Americans’) in order to make their point that Kasparov wants to turn Russia into a colony of the US, reducing ordinary Russians to the state of native Americans. The conference was notable for the presence, as participants, of people from the extreme fringes of Russian politics... the main liberal parties in Russia, especially Yabloko and the Union of Rightist Forces, declined to participate in the conference.
The meeting was attended by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Daniel Fried, and by the British and Canadian Ambassadors. The meeting caused several people to comment on Kasparov’s strongly pro-American sympathies. According to Leonid Ivashov, Vice President of he Russian Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, “It was long ago when the CIA established a network of non-commercial and non-governmental organisations. In addition, it funds over 400 scientific organisations. I know many of our politicians and scientists of politics who would at first express Russia’s state interests but then change their points of view as soon as they start receiving money from Western funds, Carnegie or Soros funds, for example. Instead, they would start propagandising for the US system, NATO, etc. In fact, they started lobbying American interests with a view to conquer Russian oil and gas resources.” In a similar vein, State Duma Deputy and historian Natalia Narochnitskaya commented, “Kasparov’s behaviour is revolting. It is not about the opposition, it is about the promotion of US interests in Russia. The CIA has gone into the background as a public structure during the recent decade. However, the anti-Russian activities are being carried out through various foundations, institutes and councils under the guise of human rights protection.” ... [Andrei Scherbakov, www.pravda.ru, 12 July 2006]

5/20/11 Congress goes after Russian officials for human rights violations
thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/20/congress_goes_after_russian_officials_for_human_rights_violations
President Barack Obama is to meet with Russian President Dmitri Medvdev May 26 in France on the sidelines of the G-8 meetings. In advance of that meeting, Congress unveiled a new bill forcing the administration to sanction Russian officials for human rights violations.
"One of the core foreign policy objectives when we came into office was the Russia reset," Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on a conference call on Friday. "It has been one of the most productive relationships for the United States in terms of the signing and ratification of the New START treaty, cooperation on nuclear security, cooperation with regard to Iran sanctions and nonproliferation generally, the northern distribution network into Afghanistan that supports our effort there, and our discussions with Russia about expanding trade ties and their interest in joining the WTO, as well as Russia's increased cooperation with NATO that was manifested by the NATO-Russia meetings in Lisbon."
The bill also outlines abuses by Russian officials in the treatment of several Russian political prisoners, including Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky...
The bill requires the Secretary of State to compile a list of names of human rights abusers in Russia, deny them visas, and requires the secretary of Treasury to do the same and freeze their bank accounts. The legislation would also bar their wives, sons, daughters, and other immediate family members from coming to the United States. The hope is that this legislation would spur similar action from the European Union.

The mythology of people power
The glamour of street protests should not blind us to the reality of US-backed coups in the former USSR

John Laughland 31 March 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/01/usa.russia
Before his denunciation yesterday of the "prevailing influence" of the US in the "anti-constitutional coup" which overthrew him last week, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan had used an interesting phrase to attack those who were stirring up trouble in the drug-ridden Ferghana Valley. A criminal "third force", linked to the drug mafia, was struggling to gain power.
Originally used as a label for covert operatives shoring up apartheid in South Africa, before being adopted by the US-backed "pro-democracy" movement in Iran in November 2001, the third force is also the title of a book published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which details how western-backed non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can promote regime and policy change all over the world. The formulaic repetition of a third "people power" revolution in the former Soviet Union in just over one year - after the similar events in Georgia in November 2003 and in Ukraine last Christmas - means that the post-Soviet space now resembles Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, when a series of US-backed coups consolidated that country's control over the western hemisphere.
Many of the same US government operatives in Latin America have plied their trade in eastern Europe under George Bush, most notably Michael Kozak, former US ambassador to Belarus, who boasted in these pages in 2001 that he was doing in Belarus exactly what he had been doing in Nicaragua: "supporting democracy"...
But for some reason, many on the left seem not to have noticed this continuity. Perhaps this is because these events are being energetically presented as radical and leftwing even by commentators and political activists on the right, for whom revolutionary violence is now cool. As protesters ransacked the presidential palace in Bishkek last week (unimpeded by the police who were under strict instructions not to use violence) a Times correspondent enthused about how the scenes reminded him of Bolshevik propaganda films about the 1917 revolution. The Daily Telegraph extolled "power to the people", while the Financial Times welcomed Kyrgyzstan's "long march" to freedom. This myth of masses spontaneously rising up against an authoritarian regime now exerts such a grip over the collective imagination that it persists despite being obviously false: try to imagine the American police allowing demonstrators to ransack the White House...
The US ambassador in Bishkek, Stephen Young, has spent recent months strenuously denying government claims that the US was interfering in Kyrgyzstan's internal affairs. But with anti-Akayev demonstrators telling western journalists that they want Kyrgyzstan to become "the 51st state", this official line is wearing a little thin. Even Young admits that Kyrgyzstan is the largest recipient of US aid in central Asia: the US has spent $746m there since 1992, in a country with fewer than 5 million inhabitants, and $31m was pumped in in 2004 alone under the terms of the Freedom Support Act. As a result, the place is crawling with what the ambassador rightly calls "American-sponsored NGOs".
The case of Freedom House is particularly arresting. Chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey, Freedom House was a major sponsor of the 'orange revolution' in Ukraine. It set up a printing press in Bishkek in November 2003, which prints 60 opposition journals... described as an "independent" press, the body that owns it is chaired by...senator John McCain, while former national security adviser Anthony Lake sits on the board. The US also supports opposition radio and TV. Many of the recipients of this aid are open about their political aims: the head of the US-funded Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, Edil Baisalov, told the New York Times that the overthrow of Akayev would have been "absolutely impossible" without American help. In Kyrgyzstan as in Ukraine, a key element in regime change was played by the elements in the local secret services, whose loyalty is easily bought... Bill Clinton's assistant secretary of state called Akayev "a Jeffersonian democrat" in 1994, and the Kyrgyz ex-president won kudos for welcoming US-backed NGOs and military... the US has well-known strategic interests in central Asia, especially Kyrgyzstan. Freedom House's friendliness to the Islamist fundamentalist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir will certainly unsettle a Beijing concerned about Muslim unrest in its western provinces. But perhaps the clearest message sent by Akayev's overthrow is this: in the new world order such sudden replacement hangs as a permanent threat - or incentive - over even the most compliant apparatchik. John Laughland is a trustee of www.oscewatch.org and an associate of www.sandersresearch.com

The NED, NGOs and the Imperial Uses of Philanthropy: Why They Hate Our Kind Hearts, Too
By JOAN ROELOFS
In recent years, nations have challenged the activities and very existence of non-governmental organizations. Russia, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea have enacted new measures requiring registration; “Open Society Institute” affiliates have been shut down in Eastern Europe; and Venezuela has charged the Súmate NGO leaders with treason. In Iraq and Afghanistan, staff of Western charitable NGOs (CARE and Doctors Without Borders) have been assassinated. What are these organizations, and who or what is behind them? {…]

Washington’s New World Order “Democratization” Template
by Jonathan Mowat
Dr. Peter Ackerman, the author of “Strategic Nonviolent Conflict” in the “National Catholic Reporter” on April 26, 2002: “It is not true that the only way to ‘take out’ such regimes is through U.S. military action.”…Speaking at the “Secretary’s Open Forum” at the State Department on June 29, 2004, in a speech entitled, “Between Hard and Soft Power: The Rise of Civilian-Based Struggle and Democratic Change, ” Ackerman elaborated on the concept involved. He proposed that youth movements, such as those used to bring down Serbia, could bring down Iran and North Korea, and could have been used to bring down Iraq… And he reported that he has been working with the top US weapons designer, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, on developing new communications technologies that could be used in other youth movement insurgencies. “There is no question that these technologies are democratizing,” he stressed, in reference to their potential use in bringing down China, “they enable decentralized activity. They create, if you will, a digital concept of the right of assembly.”...
The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US State Department and USAID are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute […] (emphasis added)
…Col. Helvey’s long experience in Myanmar in training insurgent ethnic minorities in a region that is the center of world opium production raises another question of great bearing on “post modern coups.” That is: what is the role of narcotic mafias in facilitating “regime change?” Law enforcement agencies from many nations, including the United States, have long reported that the Balkans is the major narcotics pipeline into Western Europe. Ukraine is said to be a top conduit, as is Georgia. Kyrghyzstan, now at the top of the hit list, is another opium conduit. And George Soros “the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization,” has been the top “private” funder of all the Eastern European and Central Asian insurgent groups, as well as those in Myamar. The spread of such mafias, is, of course, one of the most efficient ways of infiltrating and corrupting government agencies of targeted states….http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MOW502A.html

Freedom House led by… Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Mellon Scaife, James Woolsey, Dan Quayle, Tony Lake and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among the many George Soros NGOs. HRW pro-intervention group is stocked with Council on Foreign Relations and other elite members….Billionaire financier 'philanthropist' George Soros' control of 'human rights' dialogue is used to justify US intervention… http://www.questionsquestions.net/topics/gatekeeper_recent.html

John Laughland’s prescience on Arab Spring ‘revolutions’...
by Maidhc Ó Cathail
Back in 2005, British journalist John Laughland wrote two excellent op-ed pieces for the Guardian. In “The mythology of people power” Laughland commented on recently deposed President of Kyrgyzstan’s reference to the role of a criminal “third force” in the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew him:

Originally used as a label for US covert operatives shoring up apartheid in South Africa, before being adopted by the US-backed “pro-democracy” movement in Iran in November 2001, the third force is also the title of a book published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which details how western-backed non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can promote regime and policy change all over the world. The formulaic repetition of a third “people power” revolution in the former Soviet Union in just over one year – after the similar events in Georgia in November 2003 and in Ukraine last Christmas – means that the post-Soviet space now resembles Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, when a series of US-backed coups consolidated that country’s control over the western hemisphere....

In “Enemies bought, friends sold" ,” Laughland noted the similar failure to understand the subsequent upheaval in neighbouring Uzbekistan:
The twist this time is that President Karimov of Uzbekistan is presented as a pro-US tyrant rather than a Soviet-era throwback – so anti-war left and liberal commentators have been co-opted into baying for his blood.... the latest “people power” movement to shake a former Soviet republic... Uzbekistan is home to precisely the same network of US-funded NGO human rights activists and media outlets that helped engineer pro-US “revolutions” in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Take the source of Friday’s atrocity reports from Andijan: one “opposition journalist” from the website ferghana.ru, which seems to be a shop window for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, [WPR], which has provided the bulk of western press reports, is overwhelmingly funded by western governments and private foundations close to them: the US state department, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the US Institute for Peace, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the British Foreign Office, the European commission, the OSCE, Unesco, other European governments, among others....
As in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan under former President Akayev, Uzbekistan is home to scores of western-backed NGOs that agitate politically for the opposition. For instance, Freedom House – a notorious CIA front and main architect of the 'orange revolution' in Ukraine – has an office in Tashkent....

Enemies bought, friends sold
The Uzbek upheaval seen as a 'people power' movement is likely to cement US control of the region
John Laughland, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/19/usa.comment
...In France, if not in Britain, the word "Timisoara" has become a byword for media manipulation. A massacre was reported in that Romanian town in 1989, setting off a series of events that led to the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu. First reports spoke of "3,000 to 4,000" dead; the numbers climbed swiftly through "12,000" to "70,000". Only when regime change had been accomplished was the real number of dead in the clashes established at less than 200. Other alleged massacres in the recent past have also turned out not to have been as claimed. Four years of the Milosevic prosecution trial has not proved there was a massacre at Racak, Kosovo in January 1999 - one of the main NATO pretexts to attack Yugoslavia. Against such a background, there has been too little scepticism about reports from Uzbekistan, which seem to follow a well-worn propaganda formula... the current unrest in Uzbekistan will lead to the consolidation of American power in this strategically crucial region near China's border... US "human rights activists" are happy to indulge Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the Islamist organisation accused of being behind violence in the Ferghana valley. This alliance should come as no surprise to those who recall that the US supported the mujahideen against the Soviets in 1979, or those who have noted its friendliness to the rebels in Chechnya today. Although banned in Germany, Russia and many central Asian states for its alleged links to terrorism and anti-Semitism, Hizb-ut-Tahrir...operates out of head offices in South Kensington...Islam Karimov was bounced into accepting a US base in 2001 because like many heads of state he felt unable to resist remorseless American pressure. But since 2002 he has started to move closer to China, America's biggest rival and, with Russia, the key to understanding the US's overall geopolitical strategy. Washington is unforgiving towards people who think loyalty is a two-way street, and the Uzbek president is about to learn the lesson learned by Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Eduard Shevardnadze and scores of others: it is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend they will definitely sell you....

US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections
Tony Carlucci, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=28060http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?205607-US-Caught-Med...
...Indeed, the attempted subversion of a foreign nation and/or meddling in its elections are acts of war, an act of war the United States through its various "Non-Governmental Organizations" (NGOs) has been committing for decades around the globe. In fact, the very "Arab Spring" is a geopolitical conflagration tipped off by this vast network of Western backed NGOs...In Russia's neighboring country and ally, Belarus, this network of US-funded NGOs attempted to start a "Belarusian Spring" to overthrow leader Alexander Lukashenko, who adamently opposed NATO's creep toward its and Russia's borders. Russia's Long Fight Against US-funded Subversion...with the 'fall' of the Soviet Union...[with] billionaire oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's "Open Russian Foundation" [digest: spawned by Soros 'Open Society Foundations'][with] Jacob Rothschild and Henry Kissinger chair its board of directors. In a now all too familiar scenario, Khodorkovsky and his networks of foreign-funded NGOs
...AFP reported "Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whose United Russia party won Sunday's polls with a reduced majority, denounced NGOs like Golos, comparing them to the disciple Judas who betrayed Jesus." ...taking foreign money and pursing a foreign agenda masquerading as "pro-democracy" crusaders. Golos' activities, mirroring those in the US-engineered Arab Spring, include an online "Map of Violations" site detailing "claims" of fraud across Russia, to undermine the legitimacy of upcoming elections Putin's party was predicted to easily win. Golos' Liliya Shibanova described their "Map of Violations" project as a place where people could upload information or evidence of election violations... far from actual evidence, this again mirrors the same tactics of manipulating public opinion through uprisings around the world, fueled by foreign-funded organizations where baseless claims of abuse, violence, and "human rights" violations make up the accusations then used by Western governments to diplomatically and militarily (in the case of Libya and now Syria) pressure targeted nations.
As in Belarus, where the the vice president of NED-funded FIDH, and ring leader of foreign-funded sedition in the Eastern European country, was imprisoned for over 4 years, in Russia, the government is openly exposing the enemy by name. This has also happened in Malaysia, where the ruling government has outed the "Bersih Clean and Fair Elections" movement as a conspiracy of foreign-corporate-financier interests aimed at destabilizing the country and installing a more favorable, proxy regime led by IMF minion Anwar Ibrahim.

Russian Subversion Coordinated by US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul...a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, funded by Fortune 500, Soros' Open Society, and other foundations, also serves on the board of directors of Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy...
October 2011 "Agitator Nominated for Next US Ambassador to Russia" warned: "The Brookings Institution recently published a “letter of recommendation” of sorts for McFaul, titled, “Give the Next Russian Ambassador a Powerful Tool to Guard Human Rights.”... using “human rights” to leverage US interests over Russia. Written by Brookings’ Robert Kagan and Freedom House President David Kramer, the piece begins by immediately calling on the US Senate to confirm McFaul... then arm McFaul with a bill to “sanction” Russian officials accused of “human rights abuses.” Judging from... Robert Amsterdam’s transparent, almost cartoonish crusade for his jailed client, Mikhail Khodorovsky, it can be assumed these “abuses” are referring to the jailing of political operatives for criminal activities while serving US interests.
The Brookings piece enumerates McFaul’s “merits” which include, “democracy promotion”, meeting with “civil society” representatives in Russia and in neighboring nations, having good rapport with Russian opposition activists operating in Washington. Brookings notes in particular how important it is to have McFaul in Russia, on the ground to give his “assessment” of up-coming Russian elections. Unspoken, but sure to trickle through the headlines in coming months will be McFaul’s “democracy promotion” on behalf of select opposition parties in Russia’s political landscape....presiding over the next leg of Anglo-American global destabilization.Brookings’ Kagan and Freedom House’s Kramer nominated McFaul for further meddling in Russia’s sovereign affairs, as well as destabilizing its neighbors in a bid to hedge Russia’s reemergence as a sovereign world power...

US: Syrian regime is 'dead men walking'
12/14/11 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2011/Dec-14/156885-us-syria...
WASHINGTON: The United States portrayed Bashar al-Assad's Syrian government as "dead men walking" State Department special coordinator on Middle East affairs Frederic Hof told US lawmakers in a hearing on US policy toward Damascus. "It is difficult to predict how much time they have,"... it was vital for UN Security Council efforts to protect Syrians from Assad's forces, calling on Russia, China and India to stop opposing UN action. "We ask governments insulating this regime from the will of Syria's citizenry not to make innocent civilians pay the price for your political calculations,"

Israeli officials say Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is doomed
12/14/11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-officials-say-as...
JERUSALEM — In a shift, Israeli officials are now welcoming the prospect that Syria’s embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, will be overthrown, an event Defense Minister Ehud Barak says could be weeks away.The officials’ new tone contrasts with conventional thinking here in the past when Assad was credited with maintaining calm along the frontier with the Israeli-held Golan Heights and considered a stable alternative to a possible takeover by Islamic fundamentalists....“Basically, it’s inevitable,” Barak said in a telephone interview before flying Wednesday to Washington for meetings with Secretary of State Clinton and other administration officials. “Our view is that this regime is the equivalent of [a] dead man walking,” Frederic Hof, the State Department’s point man for Syria, told a congressional subcommittee Wednesday. “But the real question is, how many steps remain?”

NATO conceals preparations for military action against Syria
11/24/11 by Vadim Trukhachev, Pravda.Ru, Дмитрий Судаковhttp://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/24-11-2011/119733-nato_syria-0/#
Today the United States announced in Vienna, Austria, it would cease carrying out certain obligations under the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty with regard to Russia. This announcement in the CFE Treaty's implementation group comes after the US and NATO Allies tried over the past 4 years to find a diplomatic solution following Russia's decision in 2007 to cease implementation with respect to all other 29 CFE States. Since then, Russia refused to accept inspections and ceased to provide information to other CFE Treaty parties on its military forces as required by the Treaty....the USA does not refuse dialogue with Russia within the scope of the Treaty. However, Russia must get back to the institution of the CFE"...." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday..Nuland also said the United States did not intend to tie CFE with missile defense talks.
The remarks from the US diplomat look like another attempt to turn everything up side down again. It is worth mentioning the first edition of the CFE Treaty signed in 1990, during the existence of both NATO and Warsaw Pact stipulated a reduction of the number of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery (larger than 100 mm in caliber), combat planes and helicopters, as well as information exchange. A renewed variant of the treaty was signed in 1999. The new edition reflected such changes in Europe as the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO. However, only Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan ratified the new treaty. Russia moved a big part of its arms behind the Ural mountains, but the Western countries did not want to execute it. The NATO expansion continued and NATO neared Russian borders.At the end of 2007, Vladimir Putin decided to suspend Russia's participation in the CFE until the USA and its European allies ratified the renewed variant of the treaty. The Americans did not want to make any moves in that direction. Now they have decided not to inform Russia about the redeployment of its forces. This is another violation of the treaty the United States committed.
Q : "What consequences may Russia face as a result of the US decision?" Pravda.Ru asked the director of the Center for Military Forecasts, Anatoly Tsyganok:
A: "The USA will stop informing Russia about military redeployments. The Americans can technically send their troops to Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, which did not sign the treaty. Will the Baltic states turn into an uncontrollable military center near Russia's borders? When Russia suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty, she had the right to say some NATO newcomers, such as the Baltic states and Slovenia, had never signed the treaty. Now NATO eyes Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and all other former members of the Warsaw Pact. When they were deciding on the unification of Germany in 1990, Germany and France said in the appendix to the adequate agreement that NATO would not move beyond the Oder River (the river separates Germany and Poland - ed.). However, the West does not take this appendix into consideration. They only follow the agreement itself, which does not say a word about the non-expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance. It just so happens the USA and its allies played a trick on Russia."
Q:"Why did it take the United States four years to decide not to inform Russia about military redeployments?"
A:"Apparently, it is connected with the situation in the Mediterranean Sea. One may assume NATO will create a military group near Russia's southern borders to strike Syria. They will most likely raise this at the NATO summit in December...try to analyze Syria's actions in case NATO conducts a military operation against the country, like happened in Libya."
Q: "Is Russia a big obstacle for conducting NATO's operation against Syria? Does the USA have anything to conceal from us at this point?"
A:"Russia is an obstacle, yes. We have a naval base in Syria's Tartus. The base is protected with air defense complexes, so the chances for aggression from NATO or Israel from the sea are slim. If they decide to attack, it will most likely happen from the side of Saudi Arabia. So the USA has something to conceal..It is not ruled out that they are regrouping NATO forces to get ready for the war against Syria, and they don't want to notify Russia of that."

Syria's Bashar Assad Speaks to Western Press
ABC News Interview with Senior Propagandist Barbra Walters
12/11/11By Tony Cartalucci, that Libya's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, led by Abdulhakim Belhaj was on the Turkey-Syrian border preparing militants to fight the Syrian government with the assistance of Turkey's government. Hardly a "Syrian uprising", rather a NATO led foreign funded and facilitated proxy invasion consisting of a very real terrorist threat.
4. Regime change in Syria was a foregone conclusion as early as 1991. General Wesley Clark in a 2007 speech in California relayed a 1991 conversation between himself and then Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz where Wolfowitz indicated America had 5-10 years to clean up old Soviet "client regimes, namely Syria, Iran, and Iraq, before the next super power rose up to challenge western hegemony.
5.The unrest in Syria, from the beginning backed by Western interests, is part of a long-planned agenda for region-wide regime change. Syria has been slated for regime change since as early as 1991. In 2002, BBC News reported, then US Under Secretary of State John Bolton, added Syria to the growing "Axis of Evil... Bolton's threats against Syria manifested as covert funding and support for opposition groups inside of Syria spanning both Bush and Obama administrations.
In an April 2011 CNN article, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated, "We're not working to undermine that government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we're trying to do in countries around the globe. What's different, I think, in this situation is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people."
Toner's remarks came after the Washington Post 4/14/11 released cables showing the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 and continued until today.
In an April AFP report , Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, stated the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course is the "Arab Spring," and in Syria's case, impetus for the current unrest to unhinge the nation and invite in foreign intervention....
For the record: Assad's reference (at 33:30 ) to the 1992 LA 'Riots' with US use of troops, it should be noted that US Army and Marines were deployed, and between military and police, 10 were killed during operations Barbra Walters... claims the US didn't kill anyone.

America's Covert War Against Iran
Do 'All Options' Mean Nukes?
By Tom Burghardt, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29969.htm
During a White House press briefing Thursday, President Barack Obama said that "No options off the table means I am considering all options."